Saturday, June 27, 2015

Labour's risible 51-page "Clypegate" dossier is available to read, even though it was supposed to be embargoed until tomorrow. Three things leap out at me -

1) The clear implication is that the SNP are directly responsible for any ordinary members who say offensive things on Twitter, and that those members should be disciplined or expelled.

2) A startlingly large proportion of what Labour are offended by is the use of the words "traitor" and "Quisling". But there is no way on Earth that those words are any more offensive than the senior Labour activist Ian Smart repeatedly describing the SNP as Nazis and "fascist scum". Indeed, the equivalence between "Quisling" on the one hand and "Nazi" or "fascist scum" on the other is pretty blindingly obvious. Smart also, of course, used a deeply offensive racist term to refer to Pakistani people.

3) None of the people featured in the dossier are, as far as I can see, anything like as senior within the SNP as Ian Smart is within the Scottish Labour party.

Now there's not necessarily any hypocrisy here on Labour's part, as long as appropriate action is taken against Ian Smart and others like him. Smart is, as we know, under administrative suspension while an investigation takes place. But here's the snag - not long after his suspension, Smart boasted on Twitter that the whole thing was "nonsense", and added "watch this space". That strongly implies that he's been tipped the wink that the party is just going through the motions and that no action will be taken against him.

If that was Labour's intention, it's no longer tenable. Either Smart will have to go, or they haven't got a leg to stand on with this Clypegate drivel.

Anyone with their name on scottish Labour's Dodgy Dossier has a pretty good case for action since we are dealing with the usual idiots in SLAB who never seem to have a clue what they are doing while they are doing it.

I'm appalled to find I'm NOT on the list when amongst other I frequently posted pictures of Margaret Curran in a compromising position atop a Trident rocket. And called the bit part actress and rabid anti-SNP Labour supporter Frances Barbour a 'dickhead'.

P.S. it would appear even the comment verification system on James site is an evil Cybernat as it decided to quiz me on delicious cakes when I made that last post.

Oh, WE ALL KNOW what you are getting at all right, you heartless insidious web program. Why don't you just replace all those images with delicious Pies and pictures of Blair McDougal and ask us to choose between them!! :-P

I'm aware of how the word quisling is used. But everyone who uses it is equally aware of who Quisling was, and of the historical context. The relevance of that to the words "Nazi" and "fascist" are, I would hope, obvious.

I have been under the distinct impression for quite a while that Ian Smart has considerable leverage in SLAB. In other words, he knows the dirt of the party in Scotland, and that is why they have been so slow to take action against him. The only other explanation is that those at the top of SLAB genuinely do think the SNP are Nazis/fascists.

Further complicated not just by the Brown Blair wars, which never really ended, buy by a split in the managerial process between, broadly, Glasgow and Edinburgh as well as taking orders from Westminster. Since both are leaderless right now you get to factor in those contests and even more plotting and corruption behind the scenes. Much like we saw with Falkirk.

So there's quite a bit of mutually assured destruction that holds some of them back but behind the scenes you can bet the power struggle is raging furiously right now and producing language every bit as strong as that used in Scottish Labour's Dodgy Dossier.

Labour in my view is/will be happy that Ian Smart continue his vile abuse of SNP et al. Because in the tiny political minds of Labour, and against all evidence to the contrary, abusing the SNP helps its political cause in Scotland. Labour is still stuck in the McTernan political mind set that if you attack an anvil often enough with a panel pin hammer you will eventually damage the anvil. Some hopes!

What a disappointment that was. I'd been looking forward to some elaborate death threats, but it's just folk saying "traitor" and "bitch" over and over again. They should be expelled from the party for their unimaginative vocabulary more than anything.

They had to trawl back 3 years to find less then 200 Tweets from SNP members that were offensive enough in their eyes to pass onto the press. The real story of course is SLab's creepy attitude to political commentary and use of the gutter press to attack individuals for political engagement.

I think I have found the reason for this Smear campaign being launched at this time; http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/26/cps-decision-not-to-prosecute-lord-janner-to-be-overturned?CMP=share_btn_fb

I've had to delete a comment, not because it called Blair McDougall fat, but because it used the most extreme swear-word. I try to keep this a completely open forum, but I'd be grateful if everybody could use a bit of common sense.